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Independent Paper, Independent Mind
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BNH
6/1/2000
By: BNH
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One of the lions of independent newspapering in Connecticut has passed from the scene.
Carter Hixson White, retired chairman of the Meriden Record-Journal, died May 22 at the age of 83. During his tenure as publisher, the family-owned Meriden Record Co. purchased the Meriden Journal and merged it with the Morning Record. White's son, Eliot C. White, remains as publisher of one of just a handful of family-owned dailies extant in Connecticut.
A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, White spent the first decade of his career practicing law, and indeed joined the family business in 1949 as general counsel. He became general manager of the paper in 1953, executive vice president and publisher in 1967, president in 1972 and chairman two years later.
His being a family business, there was never much doubt that White would rise fast and far at the paper. But Carter White was no caretaker: He cared passionately about the public's right to know, and was one of a half-dozen influential newspapermen and -women influential in the crafting of the landmark Freedom of Information legislation that was enacted during Ella Grasso's governorship.
As befits a person in his position, White was of course a generous volunteer to an array of civic causes in Meriden, from the Boys Club to the YMCA, a corporator of Meriden Hospital, director of City Savings Bank, the United Fund and Family Service Association.
Present and past Record Journal employees recalled White as a father figure to employees. "He was the greatest boss you could ask for," said someone who put in 42 years at the paper.
In these times of rabid consolidation of media ownership, those qualities are something you won't find when the big boss is in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Trenton.
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